Bright Queen
by elusivetruth
Summary: A being's body and soul almost always mirror each other. The eldest Kurosaki child learns this isn't always true the night she becomes a shinigami. Trans!Ichigo; fem!Ichigo; trans* issues.
1. Body, Soul, and Other Body

**Bright Queen  
** By: Eva Grimm  
 _Chapter One: Body, Soul, and Other Body_

" _We think a flower on a cliff is beautiful  
_ _because we stop our feet at the cliff's edge,  
_ _unable to step out into the sky  
_ _like that fearless flower."_

Tite Kubo, _Bleach, vol. 12_

* * *

This chapter of _Bright Queen_ is dedicated to my one-year-old kitten, Ichigo. Somehow, despite being orange and white, you always keep me on my toes. Thank you for reminding me to always be ready for anything.

Chapter Summary: The eldest Kurosaki child has been addicted to the sensation of being a disembodied soul ever since the night she became a shinigami, so Rukia hatches a plan to convince her to stay in a body.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Bleach. _Bright Queen_ is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.

***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Bleach book — they're going to happen. You've been warned.

* * *

"Ichirou ("one son"; 一郎), it's late. Even Kon's asleep. You should get back in your body and rest."

"Not yet," the orange haired girl says, an undercurrent of desperation in her voice. She hugs her legs to her chest and savors the feeling of her knees pressing against her breast. Her eyes carefully look anywhere in _his_ sparsely decorated room that doesn't include one Rukia Kuchiki, avoiding the disapproving expression she knows is on the shinigami's face. The ravenette has made her opinion regarding the teen's newest pastime quite clear on multiple occasions, but this feeling… She just can't give it up. How could she reasonably be expected to after being deprived of it for the past fifteen years?

"Hn," the shinigami grunts. The ravenette is probably frowning, but the youth doesn't look to check. She just wants to bask in the feel of her body for these last precious moments before she has to go back. "This isn't healthy, Ichirou… You nee—"

"Please don't call me that," the girl cuts in with a scowl.

"I've already told you I have to call you _something_."

"And _I've_ already told you that's _his_ name." One of the teen's hands abandons its position on her leg and grabs at some of her wild orange hair's long locks, idly twisting it around her finger like she'd seen girls at school doing countless times before.

"This is _really_ unhealthy, Ichi—" The shinigami abruptly stops before she can commit the faux paus they had just talked about.

The girl curled up on the floor releases a sigh practically oozing with resignation. "I… I _know_ it is, Rukia," she mutters. "You really think I don't? A soul being outside of its body typically means _death_. Just because you're knocking my soul out with your freaky glove doesn't make it _healthy_."

The shinigami sputters. "If you _know_ it's unhealthy, then why are you spending every free moment disembodied? The only reason I got the gokkon tekkou was so you could perform my shinigami duties while I'm recovering my powers!"

"You wouldn't understand," the teen hisses in anger. "You said yourself after I killed that first hollow that you'd never seen a female soul in a _male_ (She spits the word out with a level of vehemence one would ordinarily save for swearing) body. I…" She trails off for a moment, her face twisting as she wrestles with how to phrase what she's trying to say. It's difficult because she's been so introverted since her mother's death, but she eventually resumes speaking, her tone an odd mixture of glum and excited. "When I'm out of that body I feel so _alive_ , so _right_."

"And you're certain you aren't feeling that way because of your shinigami powers?" Rukia hesitantly asks.

"Yes," she answers, her tone brooking no argument because she knows in her heart it's true. Even if she _hadn't_ wanted to be a girl all her life — which she _had_ , at least for as long as she can remember — it's obvious that what she's feeling is tied to her soul's female anatomy. Touching her hips sends a thrill coursing through her. Her soprano voice is the sweetest sound she's ever heard before. Just _thinking_ about having breasts and a vagina makes her heart _sing_! "This is my soul… This is who I am, not that body on my bed."

Silence follows and stretches on for several minutes. The orangette is just beginning to hope Rukia's given up trying to convince her when the shinigami finally speaks up again, her tone deadly serious. "What would you give to stay this way?"

"Anything," comes the answer without hesitation.

"Even giving up your old life? Abandoning your old body for one that's… fake?"

The girl on the floor slowly turns her chocolate brown eyes up to Rukia and finds the raven haired woman's amethyst eyes boring into her with incredible intensity. She takes a minute to ponder how to phrase her answer, knowing that to answer any quicker would cause the shinigami to doubt her sincerity. "I'm not sure what you mean by a 'fake' body, but I hold _no_ love for the one on my bed. And I would do my best to preserve what I can of my old life," she eventually responds, "but if I couldn't do it…"

Images of her family flash through her mind's eye. Her crazy father Isshin trying in vain to mock fight her, his peculiar way of expressing his love, but never managing to land a blow and eventually giving up in favor of telling the picture of her mom on the wall a sob story about how his… son is too distant and needs to accept… his dad's love. Her younger sister Yuzu always greeting her big… brother obvious love and affection and helping… him with the housework that their dad never manages to get around to because he's too busy running the clinic. Her other younger sister Karin feigning indifference around the rest of the family but secretly checking on how her big… brother is doing and doing her best to coax… him out of… his funk. More images join the rest as thoughts of her strange group of friends flit through her mind. The ever quirky Orihime, the stalwart Chad, the protective Tatsuki, the slacker Keigo, and the level-headed Mizuiro. Last, she thinks of Uryuu, the quiet and solitary boy she's had a crush on since the beginning of the school year when she first saw him in homeroom. Despite being a sulky loner since before junior high, she's managed to acquire a large collection of people whom she cares about and who care about her. Even though none of them know she's a _she_ , she knows they would understand her risking never seeing them again for the sake of finally finding happiness.

"They would understand," she finishes.

Indecision wars in the shinigami's eyes for a long time. The silence drags on for so long the orange haired teen completely loses track of time.

Someone knocks on the door. "Ichirou?" says the soft voice of Yuzu. "Are you still awake?"

 _Shit!_ the teen inwardly cries as she hastily pulls herself to her feet and throws herself into the awful shell of a body lying under the covers while Rukia quickly and quietly scrambles over to the closet and slips the door shut.

"Ichirou? I'm coming in," Yuzu announces.

As her sister slips the door open, she commands the fifteen-year-old shell she was born in to stir, like it's just waking up. Tonight, more than ever, she feels like a passenger in the body rather than its owner. 'Sleepy' chocolate brown eyes find the dark brown of her younger sister as the body utters, "Hm? Sorry, Yuzu. I must have dozed off with the light on." The sound of the body's voice causes her to shudder, which she quickly plays off by pulling the blanket up a little further.

"Okay!" her sister replies with a smile tinged with a bit of concern. "If you're cold, I can get you an extra blanket…"

"I'm fine. Thank you, Yuzu."

The younger girl smiles a bit more fully at that. "I'll get the light for you," she says as she flips the light switch and slowly pulls the door shut. "Good night, Big Brother."

The door clicks shut, cutting off all light but the thin ray slipping through the crack under the door. Eventually, even that light disappears as the rest of the Kurosaki family settle in for the night. The darkness of the room now absolute, the teen whispers, "Rukia? I… Please use the gokkon tekkou on me again." She's already itching to shed her false image once more, to become that true reflection of herself that she can only be when her soul is freed from its prison.

A sigh escapes the closet, so soft she can barely hear it. A moment later, the door quietly slides open, and the floor creaks slightly as her companion crosses the room. _Thank heavens. I thought for sure she'd turn me down now that I'm back in this body again._

The faint creaking reaches her bedside, but jarring feeling of her soul being released from its male prison doesn't come. Instead, the ravenette whispers to her, "I _may_ know a solution, but it's got drawbacks. We'll discuss it tomorrow after school, no sooner. Now _sleep_." The last word comes out sounding strange, but she has no chance to reflect on it as she abruptly falls asleep.

* * *

The next day is nothing short of torture for the orange haired teen. True to her word, Rukia absolutely refuses to talk about the matter she teased before using kidou to put the teen to sleep. The day moves by at a dreadfully slow pace, and all of her teachers' lectures pass over her like a haze. Worst of all, the sensation of being trapped in an ill-fitting body grows stronger with every passing second as the promised discussion approaches. By the time the final class bell rings, the sensation is entirely unbearable, and she practically sprints out of the classroom down to the shoeboxes.

"C'mon, Rukia," she mutters while anxiously waiting by the school gate for the shinigami masquerading as a high school girl to catch up. Before long, she grows too restless and in an effort to calm down, she reaches into her school bag and wraps her hand around an object inside it: A strawberry hairclip she nicked from her sister awhile back. Taking the hairclip wasn't out of the ordinary, even though she _does_ feel bad for having stolen from her sister, since she's always had a habit of picking up discarded or lost feminine objects that no guy her age would dare be caught with. Lip gloss, hair ties, and hairclips are just some of the objects she keeps carefully hidden beneath the loose floorboard under her bed. What _is_ out of the ordinary, however, is the soothing effect this particular treasure always elicits in her. None of the other items she's taken from Yuzu or Karin make her feel the same way, so that's not the reason behind the effect, that much she knows.

"Strawberry… Ichigo…" she mutters to herself under her breath as she thinks on the hair ornament's design. Something about that word calls to her. _That_ is why simply holding the hairclip soothes her so. Why it calls to her is still a mystery, but what isn't a mystery in her life? Why she was born a girl trapped in a boy's body, why she can see pluses and hollows stronger than anyone else in her family, why her mother died all those years ago… Her life is one giant mystery wrapped up in a mystery, or so it's always seemed to her.

"Who's Ichigo?"

The teen squeaks in surprise before clapping her hands over her mouth in mortification. Standing not a few feet away is Uryuu Ishida, looking genuinely surprised to have seen the 'delinquent' Ichirou react in such a feminine way. After a moment, the surprise passes and is replaced with a searching expression. Clearly her classmate won't be so easily swayed from his curiosity.

"I, ah… She's…" The orangette winces abruptly at the strange slip of the tongue? _'She'? What on Earth am I even talking about right now?_

The raven haired young man says nothing as his dark blue eyes remain trained on her, watching like a hawk.

Before the substitute shinigami can dig herself into an even deeper hole, Rukia finally arrives and saves the day. "Sorry about the wait. Are you ready to go?"

"Of course!" the teen chirps before laughing awkwardly, the timbre of her male body's laughter causing more dysphoria than usual while standing in front of her crush. "Gotta go do that thing we've been planning to do!" She quickly hooks her arm through Rukia's and starts to drag the disguised shinigami off before Uryuu comments on how strange she's acting. Funnily enough, she doesn't even realize she's fleeing with Rukia in the same way she's watched countless girls her age likewise escape awkward situations with their friends. "Is he following us?" she quietly asks after putting some distance between them and the school gate.

The ravenette glances over her shoulder before confirming, "No, he's not. Mind telling me what that was all about?"

"Well," the teen murmurs in discomfort as her companion steers them in a different direction, "it's… ah, it's kind of… awkward."

"Yes, that much was obvious even to me," she replies, referencing her own social awkwardness from being an over a hundred year old soul masquerading as a modern teenager. Understanding abruptly dawns on her face and she whirls around to face her orange-haired companion with a knowing gleam in her amethyst eyes. "You _like_ him, don't you?"

" _No_!" she denies far too quickly, a faint and damning blush settling into place on her male body's cheeks. "This is why learning 'modern language' from reading manga isn't a good idea, Rukia!"

"Mhm," the shinigami counters, clearly unconvinced. "Is that why you want to be a girl so bad? Because he only likes girls?"

" _Rukia_!" the teen cries in mortification, nervously and futilely checking to see if anyone nearby heard her friend. "That's _not_ it," she quietly hisses through clenched teeth. "How many times do I have to tell you? I've wanted to be a girl for as long as I can remember. I didn't meet Uryuu until this school year started. When are you going to believe that I'm being sincere?"

The ravenette quietly watches as her blushing companion nervously brings her hands together in front of her waist as if she's preparing to bow, the girl's way, and trains her eyes on the ground. The orange-haired youth's mannerisms had slowly but surely begun to grow more feminine during the weeks following her first experience as a substitute shinigami, and the usually alert Rukia hadn't missed the change. At first she had suspected the transfer of her powers had somehow forcefully imprinted her own soul's femininity and mannerisms onto Ichirou's soul, but the evidence didn't precisely support that conclusion. Ichirou _wasn't_ acting like Rukia but rather an ordinary, if awkwardly shy, teenage girl. Moreover, Ichirou had been insisting that she had always felt this way, and the idea of a soul imprint is farfetched enough without the added notion of the substitute shinigami's memories being rewritten as well.

 _The only reasonable explanation is that he…_ she _honestly feels this way_ , the shinigami concludes, her resolve to help the girl trapped in a boy's body renewed. "Come with me," she firmly says, grabbing the orangette's hand and dragging her off once more. "We'll talk about the solution I mentioned last night while we're on our way there."

As the two of them rush off in bodies ill-fitting their true selves, a girl with long, dark orange hair steps out of the side street from where she had frozen in place upon hearing Rukia declare that Ichirou wants to be a girl. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop, but she couldn't bring herself to move until the pair had left, and consequently heard everything. "Ichirou…" Orihime Inoue murmurs softly to herself, still thrown by what she's learned. "Oh, Ichirou…"

* * *

"Do you understand, Miss Kurosaki?" the strange proprietor of Urahara Shop, whom Rukia introduced as Urahara Kisuke, asks the orange-haired soul standing before him clad in her shihakushou with a zanpakutou as long as she is tall strapped to her back. Rukia stands nearby waiting anxiously for the substitute shinigami's reply. Kon, who Rukia brought along especially for this meeting, is sits cross-legged on the floor next to her in the body of 'Ichirou,' and he too is nervously awaiting the girl's response.

"Yes," she replies without hesitation, a small smile playing across her lips from being called 'Miss.' _He looks like a creeper, but he's been so respectful this whole time._ "If I choose to live in one of your gigai, then it will reshape to match my soul's, rather than my original body's, appearance. My soul will still be anchored to my original body through my soul chain, so whatever happens to it happens to my soul. As it grows older, I'll grow older, and so will the gigai. If it dies… then I die."

"Just so!" he declares, hiding his face behind his fan as he does so, leaving only his piercing gray eyes visible in the gap between the fan and the brim of his green and white hat. "Kon can live in your original body, but you can never escape that body's fate. How you choose to integrate your new body into your old life, if you choose to do it at all, is a matter I leave entirely in your hands." He pauses for a moment, giving the soul a moment to grasp the weight of his words, then finally asks, "Knowing all of this, Miss Kurosaki, are you _certain_ you wish to go through with it?"

Just as she did the previous night, the orangette gives the matter a few minutes' honest consideration, her gaze falling to the floor as she thinks. Eventually, her chocolate brown eyes rise and stare into Urahara's with determination as the smile on her lips grows larger. "Yes. My fate's tied to my original body either way, so when it comes down to it, it's a question of whether I'm willing to risk my old life for the sake of being me — the _real_ me. And like I told Rukia last night… I know everyone I care about would understand. Besides, as you said, doing this also means that Kon will get to live in a _real_ body instead of a stuffed lion, so 'Ichirou Kurosaki' doesn't have to die. Please… give me the gigai."

Kon's delight at the girl's answer is palatable, but Rukia is a mixture of resigned and pleased as Urahara silently disappears into the recesses of his shop to retrieve the requested items. If someone had told her what would happen in Karakura Town before she left Soul Society to hunt down the hollow that attacked the Kurosaki family, she honestly would have thought that someone was crazy. Now that it had all come to pass, now that she was a part of it all… She feels like _she's_ the crazy one. _Nothing short of craziness would have led to me suggesting this to her, this unnatural way of living_ , the shinigami thinks. _And yet… I can't help being happy for her. Shinigami exist to preserve the balance. To not offer this girl the chance to live in a body that matches her soul… wouldn't that fly in the face of my duty as a shinigami?_

"Rukia," the girl says, drawing the shinigami's attention. The orangette's smile is still firmly in place, and Rukia belatedly remembers that when she first saw the girl she was sulking on the bed with a frown and that she hadn't smiled until after she had cut down the hollow and realized that her shinigami form, her true soul's reflection, was female. "Thank you for this."

The girl's words elicit a small, true smile from the much older and ordinarily very serious shinigami. "You're welcome," she simply replies as the panel door separating the main store area from the back slides open.

Urahara steps through the open door with a folded set of clothes in his arms. A large bespectacled man with a handlebar mustache and cornrows leading into a single braid follows him as far as the door, and slung over his shoulder is a body made entirely of muscle — the blank gigai. Behind them are two children, one a black haired girl and the other a red haired boy, just barely poking their heads around the door, trying to spy on the proceedings and utterly failing at remaining out of sight. The orangette has met them all before, back when they came to try and take back Kon, but she was only ever introduced to Urahara, so she's unable to greet the newcomers.

"Please follow Tessai and me, Miss Kurosaki. We'll get you set up in a private room where you can enter your gigai and get dressed."

The orange-haired soul takes a step forward before pausing, a contemplative look crossing her face. "One second," she says as she turns on her heel and strides over to Kon. "Ko— _Ichirou_ , would you please hand me my school bag?"

The mod-soul's surprise morphs into a wide smile as he hands the girl the requested bag. "I'm really _am_ going to be Ichirou from now on, aren't I?"

She laughs as she takes the bag and turns to follow Urahara and Tessai. "Yeah… Yeah, I guess you are." And with those words, she truly sheds the identity 'Ichirou Kurosaki' and leaves it in the mod-soul's care, walking through the door into the back and into the new life that awaits her there.

A minute later, the two oldest employees of Urahara Shop return to the main room, ushering the two children in front of them before shutting the door to the back. "We wouldn't want to spoil Miss Kurosaki's big reveal, would we, Ururu? Jinta?" He adjusts his hat with a grin, his serious side once more abandoned in favor of his typical laid-back attitude. The group of six waits in silence — well, relative silence, since Jinta is currently poking and prodding Ichirou, who is slowly developing a tick while grumbling about stupid kids — for the door to open once more.

When the door finally slides open, dragging Ichirou and Jinta's attention back to it, the sight that greets the group is both expected and unexpected. There in the door is a teenage girl with long orange hair dressed in a simple long-sleeved, white blouse with orange trim, a skirt that matches her eyes, white knee high socks, loafers that also match her eyes, and her school bag slung over her shoulder. Where Ichirou is 174 centimeters tall, she is only 158, and where he is all hard angles, she is soft curves. All of that is expected, but what isn't is her hair is pulled back into a low, loose ponytail with a red hair tie, and her bangs are held back from falling into her chocolate brown eyes by a strawberry hairclip.

The girl shyly smiles and bows with her hands clasped in front of her, the traditional way for girls to bow in Japan, while saying in a soprano, "Hello. My name's Ichigo ("bright queen"; 矞后) — Ichigo Kurosaki. I'm pleased to meet you all."

* * *

"Are you sure you're okay with this, Rukia?" Ichigo asks in a worried tone as she, Ichirou, and Rukia take one of the last turns on the way to the Kurosaki Clinic. "You won't get in trouble with Soul Society if I reveal your existence to my family?"

"There's no law against revealing our presence to humans," the shinigami calmly replies. "If there were, then we'd get in trouble on the rare occasion that we come across a human with reiryoku high enough to see us. This isn't the same situation, but the point stands there's no law that applies here."

The orangette gives her shorter companion a dubious look. "Then why didn't you tell them before? You can't tell me you _liked_ living in my closet."

Ichirou snorts in amusement, but Rukia just smiles faintly and replies, "Because even though I didn't like living in your closet, I didn't feel that justified taking the risk of telling your family and having them try to talk you out of being a substitute shinigami. Now I know you better and know you won't back down from doing what's right."

Ichigo opens her mouth to reply as they approach the front door of the clinic but is cut short when the door slams open and Isshin rockets out in a flying kick aimed straight at her while shouting, " _You're laaaaaate_!"

She easily side-steps him out of habit and before she can stop herself, she calls out, "I'm home!"

"Hm? Who is that?" Yuzu says as she steps into the entryway a moment later, a puzzled look on her face that's matched by Isshin when he lands in the middle of the street. Silence falls over the group as Isshin and Yuzu stare at Ichigo in confusion and Ichigo, Ichirou, and Rukia flounder over how to start explaining.

The moment is broken when Karin, last but not least, finally pokes her head around the corner, takes in the situation for a moment, then casually returns to whatever she was doing, calling out behind her, "Whoever she is, can we figure it out inside? Dinner's getting cold."

"I, uh…" Ichigo awkwardly begins, turning from Yuzu to Isshin, the latter of whom is staring at her so intensely that she starts to fidget. "May we — that is, Rukia and me — join you for dinner?"

"Sure you can, Ichir- _go_! Ichigo, I mean," Ichirou abruptly chips trying to pretend nothing is wrong despite stumbling over her name. "That's not a problem, right Dad?"

Isshin turns his piercing gaze to Ichirou, and the boy shivers under its intensity. The older man continues to stare at him for a moment longer, as if he can tell just by looking at Ichirou that he's not the same Ichirou who left for school that morning. "Of course!" the man suddenly replies in his usual tone of voice as if nothing is wrong, his serious side vanishing in an instant. "Yuzu, do we have enough food for two guests to join us?"

"I, I can get out some of the leftovers from yesterday," the young brunette answers, still obviously confused but recovering enough to rush off to the kitchen to prepare the extra food.

Soon enough, the group of six adds two chairs to the dinner table and crams in around it, and Isshin declares a Kurosaki family meeting but insists that everyone eat first while the food is warm. Isshin and Ichirou promptly dig into the food with gusto as if nothing is amiss, Karin begins to eat at her typical pace, and the rest of the girls soon follow suit with a tad more reluctance. Ichigo in particular barely eats anything, her stomach so full of butterflies that she can barely stomach eating anything at all. After a few minutes of mostly shuffling around what little food she put on her plate, the orangette sets down her chopsticks and pushes the plate away.

"Not hungry, Miss Ichigo?" Yuzu asks, glancing at the practically untouched plate with concern.

"Not really, sorry," she replies awkwardly, not quite certain how to act around her younger sister just yet.

"Did you not like it? I can make you something else!"

"No, no!" Ichigo says, shaking her head. "It was very good. My stomach just isn't feeling well right now." She rises from her seat as she adds, "I'll just go grab some anti-nausea medicine from the clinic."

"Oh?" Isshin cuts in. "You know where that is then?"

The teenager freezes mid-step. "Err… N-no, of course not, since this is _absolutely_ the _first_ time I've ever been here." She turns around but keeps her eyes trained on the ground, studiously avoiding the curious glances of Karin and Yuzu and the knowing eyes of Isshin. "W-would one of you mind going to get it for me?"

Karin sets down her chopsticks and rises from her seat. "I'm done, so I'll grab it."

"Thank you, Karin," Ichigo replies before realizing she's slipped up again.

The ravenette casually asks, "Oh? Did Ichirou mention my name? I know Dad and Yuzu didn't," as she starts towards the hallway that leads to the clinic.

"Yeah… Yeah, something like that," the orange haired girl mutters before returning to her own chair. Somehow, she manages to resist the urge to put her face in her hands.

By the time Karin returns with the requested pills, Yuzu has begun putting the dishes in the sink to be washed. Knowing the time is at hand, Ichigo swallows the medicine and silently prays to whatever deity is listening (Considering what she's learned about Soul Society so far, she's honestly no longer sure what to believe.), begging for the coming conversation to go well.

"So Ichigo," Isshin says, signaling the beginning of the inquisition. "Would you like to tell us about yourself?"

The teen blanches as everyone's eyes, including Rukia's and Ichirou's, all turn to look at her. She turns her eyes down to the table as the butterflies in her stomach begin to swarm twice as hard, and she's suddenly glad that she didn't eat much. _I know I told everyone at Urahara Shop that my family would understand, but it's_ a lot _more difficult actually being in front of them and needing to explain…_ Still, she _had_ thought about how to do this on the way over, and even though she has never been in a situation this awkward before, she _has_ been in situations where she had to swallow down her anxiety and just plow ahead. Take for example… "S-so I'm sure you all remember how the clinic was hit by a truck recently?" She could wait for one of her family members to say 'yes' or nod, but she plows ahead, knowing that if she hesitates at all, then she'll sputter out and be unable to resume. "Well, that was a lie, and though what I'm about to tell you is farfetched, it's the truth. You see, there's a type of monster called a 'hollow' that only people who are spiritually aware can see, and there are also shinigami, people with powers who hunt down hollows and help regular ghosts. That night, one of those monsters attacked the clinic trying to get to m— to _Ichirou_ , and a shinigami named Rukia arrived to kill it before it could hurt anybody." Yuzu and Karin both turn to look at Rukia, but as before, Ichigo continues to plow ahead with her explanation. "What happened exactly is a bit of a long story, but what it boils down to is I…" This time, she's so caught up in her rambling explanation that she doesn't bother to correct her mistake. "…did something really stupid and got Rukia hurt because of it. Rukia tried to transfer half of her shinigami power to me because we were out of options, but something went wrong, and I took _all_ of her power. I managed to kill the hollow, and Rukia knows people who can cover up hollow attacks, so none of you knew. And since then, I've been helping Rukia by being a substitute shinigami because she couldn't get her powers back and because someone had to stop those monsters from hurting people, and also because… b-because of something else too."

She takes a deep shuddering breath, her eyes still trained on the table, before continuing. "See, shinigami, like hollows, normally can't be seen by people because they're just spirits, so whenever I needed to be a shinigami, I had to have my soul knocked out of my body. A-and the thing is, my soul is d-different than most people because… because…" Something convinces her to look up at that moment, and as her chocolate brown eyes look to Karin and Yuzu she finds dawning understanding and, for Isshin, a strange half smile that causes the a single tear to slip free and begin rolling down her cheek. The words begin to slip out unbidden. "Because mine is f-female. I've known it my _whole life_ , and I was… I was _afraid_ of what you'd think of me if I told you I'd always wanted to be a girl. Afraid of what my friends would think, of what people at school might do, of what admitting I was a girl in a guy's body would do to _me_. But I _couldn't_ hide from it anymore. Even if I'd refused to be a substitute shinigami, I had already experienced being female the night Rukia gave me her powers, and I couldn't deny how _right_ it had made me feel. Being in my original body quickly began to feel more and more unbearable because it wasn't _me_. I kept coming up with excuses to get out of it, to just stay in my soul form. Rukia tried to tell me that what I was doing wasn't healthy, that I couldn't abandon my body, but I was just getting worse and worse. After a few weeks, I had reached the point where I was spending every moment I could out of my body." Yuzu is crying freely, having realized why her older sibling had been so distant recently, and it took all of Ichigo's willpower to not start crying herself. "Rukia finally came up with an idea of how to help me last night. See, the reason you can see her is because she's using a fake body that shinigami use to interact with normal humans, and she told me she could get _me_ one — get me a body that actually feels _right_. My soul's still chained to that body…" She shakily points at Ichirou. "But I don't care because now I… I can f-finally be 'Ichigo' instead of 'Ichirou.' I can finally be _me_." Her eyes fall to the table again, and she clenches them shut. "S-so now you know the truth. I… I u-understand if you want to d-disown me."

Yuzu moves to Ichigo's side so quickly the younger girl's chair falls over backwards, and she wraps her arms around the older girl and hugs her tightly. "Oh, Ichigo… We could never do that to you, Big Sister!" she cries into her shoulder.

"B-b-but I _lied_ to you!" the flabbergasted orangette replies, her eyes now wide open in shock.

"So what?" Karin cuts in, her expression soft instead of its usual indifference. "You were _scared_. We all do dumb things when we're scared sometimes. If you agree to just come to us the next time you're struggling with something this big, then I think you getting dish duty for the next month should make everything square."

The older girl laughs at that, her voice watery as she finally hugs Yuzu back, her arms lightly trembling. "I… I don't know what to say."

"Waaaah!" Isshin wails as he dashes over to the large picture of the girls' mother that he keeps on the wall. "Masaki, how am I supposed to take care of three daughters without you?! They're growing up too faaaaast!"

"Dad…" Ichigo whispers, a few more tears escaping as the realization that _all_ of her family accepts her truly begins to settle in. A warm feeling begins to grow in her chest, and she hugs her little sister even tighter. "All of you…" Her chocolate brown eyes turn to Rukia, who is watching the scene before her with a soft smile and joy alight in her amethyst eyes. " _Thank you_."

They all stay that way for a while, Ichigo and Yuzu tightly hugging each other, Isshin crying to the picture of Masaki, and Karin and Rukia sitting back and watching it all with affectionate looks on their faces.

Ichirou wisely elects to just stay quiet until somebody else realizes that nobody's discussed why Ichigo's old body is just moving around on its own.


	2. A Girl and a Shoujo Hero

" _Waaaah!" Isshin wails as he dashes over to the large picture of the girls' mother that he keeps on the wall. "Masaki, how am I supposed to take care of three daughters without you?! They're growing up too faaaaast!"_

" _Dad…" Ichigo whispers, a few more tears escaping as the realization that all of her family accepts her truly begins to settle in. A warm feeling begins to grow in her chest, and she hugs her little sister even tighter. "All of you…" Her chocolate brown eyes turn to Rukia, who is watching the scene before her with a soft smile and joy alight in her amethyst eyes. "_ Thank you _."_

 _They all stay that way for a while, Ichigo and Yuzu tightly hugging each other, Isshin crying to the picture of Masaki, and Karin and Rukia sitting back and watching it all with affectionate looks on their faces._

 _Ichirou wisely elects to just stay quiet until somebody else realizes that nobody's discussed why Ichigo's old body is just moving around on its own._

* * *

 **Bright Queen  
** By: Eva Grimm  
 _Chapter Two: A Girl and a Shoujo Hero_

" _If you say that your heart doesn't change  
_ _Then that is strength."_

Tite Kubo, _Bleach, vol. 54_

* * *

Chapter Summary: Ichigo takes the first steps towards establishing her new life as Ichirou's 'twin sister,' but not everyone is fooled.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Bleach. _Bright Queen_ is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.

***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Bleach book — they're going to happen. You've been warned.

* * *

Chocolate brown eyes slowly peel open as Ichigo wakes, the early morning sun shining down on her face. She continues to lay there for a few minutes, savoring the sensation of her new body and her memories of the previous night. It had been eventful to say the least. Even after an awkward dinner with her family, struggling to explain her new situation while being utterly terrified of how they might react, and then being dumbfounded by the uncompromising acceptance they showed her after, the night still had not been over. Together with Rukia and Ichirou, she explained about her original body's new occupant and how she would forever be bound to that body's fate. _That_ hadn't gone quite as well. Yuzu and Karin had qualms with the idea of their new 'big brother,' and Isshin… Well, he had been typical Isshin, running to the picture of Masaki on the wall and wailing about needing to defend his daughters from perverts, which given Ichirou's past proclivities while he was a stuffed lion… might actually be a legitimate concern. In the end, it was agreed the new 'Ichirou' was a necessary evil (Ichirou hadn't been too thrilled at being defined at such, but he took what he could get.) for the sake of protecting Ichigo's original body, so the group decided to hold out Ichigo to the neighbors and to Karakura High as Ichirou's twin sister who had just returned to Japan after time abroad with relatives. Yuzu, Karin, and Isshin would mention the 'return' of the eldest Kurosaki daughter to the neighbors, and Rukia would handle getting the orangette registered with the school in whatever mysterious way she managed to get herself registered there.

Ready to face the new day, Ichigo pushes herself up into a seated position on the bed and slips out from under the covers and onto the floor, careful to not disturb Rukia, who is still sleeping on a futon set up against the opposite wall. She has mixed feelings about keeping her old room, since all her memories of using it involve being in her original body, but it's bigger and better than the storage closet the family is going to refit into a room for Ichirou. She quietly makes her way to the door, feeling a tad ridiculous in the overly large shirt she borrowed from her old clothes to serve as sleepwear for the night, and slips out into the hallway. From there, it's a short walk to the family's small furo, and upon opening the door, she's pleased to find that Yuzu has, as promised, already washed and dried her clothes from the previous day and left them folded for her to wear after her bath. She sets the door's sign to occupied then sets about washing, taking a longer time than usual as she familiarizes herself with her new body (Though she avoids exploring her genitalia too thoroughly, not wanting to do _that_ in the family furo.). Satisfied with her cleanliness and her inspection of her gigai, she slips into the hot furo with a delighted sigh, making a mental note to thank Yuzu later for drawing the bath.

Someone knocks at the door a minute later and calls out, "Ichigo, is that you in there?"

"Yeah," she replies, recognizing the voice as Karin.

"Mind if I join you?"

Instinctively, she opens her mouth to answer 'no' but catches herself just in time. _Well, what's the harm? We're both girls…_ "S-sure," she answers, trying to speak confidently and not quite managing it.

Her raven haired younger sister slips in and sets about stripping down and cleaning herself as if nothing is out of the ordinary. Ichigo carefully keeps her eyes trained on the wall, a faint blush dusting across her cheeks as she begins to question whether this is really a good idea.

After splashing cold water over herself to wash away the suds, Karin abruptly says, "Ichigo, look at me." Startled by the sudden break in the silence, the teen instinctively turns her head to face her sister before her old way of thinking can cause her to second guess herself. "We're sisters," the ravenette points out, her tone making it clear that she has no misgivings about Ichigo looking at her. "Even if you like girls" (The older girl sputters at this, but Karin plows ahead.) "there's nothing wrong with looking at me. Besides, beginning tomorrow, you'll be using the girls' restroom and locker room at school. It's better that you get over any irrational fears here and now while you're with somebody in the know."

Ichigo just stares at the younger, quite naked girl for a minute, her mind processing her sister's logic. Eventually, her blush fades away, and her lips lift into a small smile. "You're right. Thank you, Karin." She scoots a little bit closer to the edge of the small bath to make some more room and gestures at the empty space. "So, are you just going to stand around naked all day, or are you going to get in?" she asks with a grin.

The ravenette grins as she crosses over to the tub and slips in. It's a tad tight for them both, since the tub is designed to accommodate a fully grown man, but neither of them complain, simply enjoying the chance to soak before starting their day. After a time, Ichigo stands up and steps out of the bath, and as she crosses over to where the towels are, she pauses and turns back to her little sister.

"Hey, Karin?"

"Hm?" the pre-teen mumbles, lazily opening one eye to glance at her older sister.

"Thank you."

"No problem. Now, are you just going to stand around naked all day, or are you going to get dressed?"

Ichigo playfully makes a face at Karin before dissolving into a fit of giggles, and Karin ignores her in favor of closing her eyes and lounging in the warm water, her grin returning in full force.

The older girl quickly dons her clothes, a feeling of satisfaction rushing through her as she pulls on her skirt, then steps into the hallway and makes her way into the dining room. Yuzu, Isshin, and Ichirou are all already there, the latter two anxiously waiting as Yuzu puts the finishing touches on the breakfast in the kitchenette. Oddly enough, Ichirou has a red, foot-shaped mark on his cheek, and after puzzling over the sight for a few moments, she realizes that her father probably hit him with one of his usual 'good morning' flying kicks. _Well, at least some things don't change, even if I'm not the one in that body anymore!_

"Morning," Ichigo says with a smile as she heads over to the table to take a seat.

"Good mooooorning, Ichigoooo!" Isshin, who has only just now noticed her, cries as he bounds over to her in a way that only he could ever manage and pulls her into a tight bear hug.

"Dad," she manages to gasp out, her face turning blue from oxygen deprivation, "I can't _breathe_!"

"Oh, I almost forgot!" her father suddenly exclaims, releasing her and dashing off towards the clinic for a moment before swiftly returning with a couple stacked boxes that he holds out to his now panting for breath daughter. "We don't have enough money to buy you an entirely new wardrobe, but I remembered that some of your mom's old clothes from when she was about your age were up in the attic, so I go them out for you!"

Ichigo's breath hitches painfully in her chest at that and the corners of her eyes burn as she resists the urge to cry. "Wait, what?!"

Yuzu, however, has a very different reaction. "Kya! That's so great! I'm sure big sister will look beautiful in them!"

"No!" the orangette cries in dismay, drawing everyone's eyes to her. "I c-can't… I know none of you blame me for mom's death, but… but _I do_ , so I can't just take these. They're memories of her, so you should kee—" A box being shoved in her face cuts her off.

"Do you remember what I told you at your mom's grave?" Isshin asks, his expression serious as Ichigo fumbles with the box for a moment before clutching against her chest. "I'll tell you: It's no one's fault that she died, and if I were to blame her death on you, she would get mad at me. Right now, you need clothes, and your mom's are the only ones we have that will fit you properly. Do you think your mom would be happy if I let our eldest daughter run around in ill-fitting clothes for the sake of old memories, or do you think she'd want me to give them to you so you can make new memories with them for us all?"

A lone tear breaks free and slides down the teen's face, but she says nothing. Yuzu moves the food from the stove to a pot holder on the counter, walks over to Ichigo, and wraps her arms around her neck in a light hug. "Come eat breakfast, big sister. I'll help you get everything hung up in your closet after we're done, then you, Karin, Rukia, and I can go get you new undergarments and a school uniform."

"We'll come too!" Isshin and Ichirou declare in unison, the latter for reasons much more perverted than the former.

" _Hell_ _no_!" the Ichigo shouts back in righteous indignation, breaking out of her funk. "Girls only!"

* * *

"How do the ones I gave you before fit?" Yuzu asks through the changing room door while Karin, who really only came along the trip as moral support for their big sister, sits in a nearby chair idly reading a manga and Rukia wanders around the store looking at this and that.

"Most of them are fine, but a few are too loose or tight on my chest," the orangette replies from the other side. "I think I've got enough to get by now, so I'll be out in a second."

"Okay! The other shop should be done making the uniform alterations soon, so if we grab some groceries on the way back, then I can make us lunch when we're home."

A minute later, the older girl exits the changing room once again fully clothed, a batch of bras in each hand, one of which she tosses into a nearby bin meant for clothes that need to be rehanged. "Thanks for your help, Yuzu," she says with a smile as the pair start making their way to the register.

"No problem!" responds with a smile of her own just before a cell phone nearby begins to loudly beep.

A wide-eyed Ichigo whirls around to face the direction the sound's coming from, all too familiar with that ringtone. Sure enough, Rukia is already pulling out a soul candy dispenser and racing towards them. "Where is it, Rukia?" she says in an abruptly serious tone that startles both Yuzu and Karin, who had been listening in.

"The intersection up the street that way," she points, "sometime within the next twenty minutes!" the shinigami replies in a no-nonsense voice as she tosses the orangette the dispenser.

"Yuzu, Karin," the teen says, turning to her sisters, "I need you to go pay for those, then stay with Rukia here in the store, and she'll keep you both safe, okay?" Without waiting for a reply, she pops a candy into her mouth, and a pale Karin watches in a mixture of awe and horror as her sister's soul rockets out of her body in a shihakushou with her enormous zanpakutou.

The substitute shinigami quickly starts towards the glass window display, intending to phase through it, but is stopped short by Karin grabbing her wrist. "Wait, what are you doing, Ichigo?" she cries loudly enough that some nearby staff and customers turn to look and are confused to see the girl grasping at seemingly thin air. Rukia and the artificial soul in Ichigo's gigai both see this and move so they're blocking the onlookers' view of Karin.

"Have you already forgotten, Karin?" the teen's soul asks, turning back to give her an intense look. "Or did you think I was joking when I told you about being a shinigami? Until Rukia gets her powers back, I'm the only defense the people in Karakura Town have against hollows!"

"Karin, I don't understand," Yuzu whispers while looking back and forth between Ichigo's gigai and Ichigo's soul. "I can see a blur, so you're talking to a ghost, right? But Ichigo's over here…"

The ravenette spares a brief glance at the still clearly standing Ichigo then replies at a lower volume than earlier, "Ichigo's soul isn't in there. I'm holding her right now." She turns back to her obviously growing impatient sister's soul and begs, "I know what you said, but… But it's one thing to hear you say it and another for you to be rushing off into danger. Please don't go…"

Before either of them can continue to argue one way or the other, everyone but Yuzu suddenly hears a hollow roar, and knowing she has no time to argue, Ichigo tears her wrist out of Karin's grasp and races away. Less than a second later, the pre-teen bursts into a sprint and races through the front door to chase after her sister before Rukia can stop her. Uttering a curse that ought not have been used near poor Yuzu, the powerless shinigami rushes out after the two girls as well, leaving a flustered Yuzu behind with the artificial soul in Ichigo's gigai.

"Um, Miss Fake Big Sister?" the brunette says, turning to face the taller girl's body. "Would you please pay for these bras then wait with them outside the store?"

"Sure thing, pyon ("hop")!" the artificial soul readily answers while saluting with one hand and grabbing the bras with the other.

"Ah…" the younger girl trails off, suddenly questioning whether this was a good idea, but the thought of _why_ an artificial soul is in her sister's body spurs her into action anyway, and she dashes out of the store after the other two girls and her older sister's disembodied soul. As she crosses the threshold, she turns to face where Rukia pointed earlier and is surprised to find Rukia and Karin walking on the sidewalk back towards the store. "I-is it over already?"

Ichigo, who Yuzu can't see is also walking back with the other two girls, opens her mouth to reply before remembering that Yuzu won't be able to hear her like this. Instead, Rukia replies, "Ichigo was just about to attack the hollow when some sort of reishi attack struck its head and killed it." Seeing the look of confusion on the brunette's face at the word 'reishi,' she quickly explains, "Err, reishi are spirit particles, the same material that makes up your sister's soul."

"I got the bras, pyon!" the artificial soul loudly calls out as it exits the store, causing a passing teenage boy's nose to abruptly gush blood.

Ichigo groans in embarrassment before promptly sliding back into her gigai, causing a soul candy to pop out of her mouth and into the teen's practiced hand. "Aaand we're going home," she mutters as she passes the candy back to Rukia, who is trying — and failing — to not laugh. As the four girls begin walking back to the Kurosaki clinic, the orangette can't help but bemoan the unfortunate side effect of telling her family about her 'part-time job' and can't help but ponder about the attack that killed the hollow and who might have done it.

* * *

"What's his problem?" Ichirou whispers to himself as he catches Uryuu Ishida sending a funny look his way for the third time in the past ten minutes. "It's bad enough I had to get here early with her… I don't need him staring at me too."

"Hey, Ichirou," Mizuiro greets as he walks up and takes a seat at his own desk, having just arrived. "Why'd you have to leave for school early this morning? Yuzu told me to go on ahead when I arrived to walk with you and said you'd tell me why."

"Hey," he replies, doing his best to remember the lesson Ichigo gave him the night before about how to act around her old friends in order to not be suspicious. "Sorry 'bout that. What a pain… You'll find out soon enough."

The dark-haired boy quirks an eyebrow at that, and for a second Ichirou panics, thinking he's already blown his cover, but is relieved when Mizuiro responds, "Oh? Well that's certainly mysterious! How fun!"

The two of them continue to idly chatter as they wait for class to start, and Keigo joins in when he arrives just a few minutes before the bell. Besides the strange looks Uryuu sent his way earlier, the only other interaction that makes Ichirou worry is when he and Orihime greet each other and the dark orange haired gives him a peculiar look. Still, the mod-soul is confident he's pulling off the 'cold, indifferent loner' attitude well. It's unfortunately easy to do, he finds, whenever he thinks about why Ichigo acted that way. If Soul Society hadn't ordered all mod-souls to be destroyed, he nevertheless would have been slated for a life of being moved from body to body at the behest of shinigami, never truly having a chance to settle into a body and call it his own. Ichigo had been trapped in a body she was uncomfortable in her entire life, so Ichirou could relate to that pain.

Eventually, bell signaling the start of first period rings, and Misato Ochi enters classroom 1-3, announcing, "Class, we have a new student today! Please join me in welcoming her!"

Ichigo steps into the room after her sensei with her bag slung over her shoulder and dressed in the summer uniform of a gray pleated skirt, short-sleeved white button down shirt, and a red ribbon tied as a bow under her shirt's collar. Her hair is done up similarly to how it's been the past few days, but her low ponytail is held in place with a hair tie with strawberry ends that match the strawberry hairclip holding back her bangs. The students immediately begin to whisper amongst one another about — or in the case of Keigo Asano catcall at — the orange-haired girl, who lightly blushes under the scrutiny (Though most of it is due to Keigo's whistling.).

"Okay! Please write your name on the board and tell the class a little about yourself," the teacher says, drawing Ichigo out of her reverie.

"Huh? Oh, right," the orangette replies only just remembering that as a 'new' student, she would have to introduce herself. As she grabs a piece of chalk and starts to write on the board, the chatter continues behind her.

"Hey, Ichirou," Keigo whispers. "The hot new student looks kinda like you. Have a secret sister you've been holding out on us, man?"

Instead of replying with words, the mod-soul lazily raises an eyebrow and points at the board. The brown-haired teen turns with a confused expression to look at where Ichirou is pointing, and his jaw drops at the name on the board.

"Ichigo Kurosaki (矞后 黒崎)," the orangette reads aloud as she finishes writing, turning around to face the surprised faces of the students. "It's nice to meet you all! So something about myself… My twin brother Ichirou is your classmate," roughly half of the class begins to look back and forth between the two orange-haired teens, comparing them against each other, "and we haven't seen each other in years because I was living with relatives overseas. They… they died recently, and that's all I'll say about that." Ichigo pauses for a moment, casting her eyes down and milking the 'dead relatives' for all she can.

Rukia fights to suppress a grin as most of the class gasp in shock and dismay and are practically sitting on the edge of their seats. _They're really eating up the story we made! Success!_

Eventually, Ichigo continues. "But I'm happy I get to be with my brother and the rest of my family again." A small smile finds its way to her lips, and she lifts her eyes once more. "Beyond that… Well, I'm sure we'll find plenty to talk about." She finishes with a bow and as she pulls herself upright once more, her eyes drift over the class, judging everyone's reactions. Ichirou is busy feigning indifference like she told him the night prior, Rukia is giving her a discrete thumbs-up, Keigo's eyes are predictably locked onto her breasts (She barely manages to resist the urge to roll her eyes at his predictable reaction.), Mizuiro looks like his interest is peaked for good or bad, Tatsuki is obviously in shock and probably wondering why Ichirou never mentioned having another sister, Chad appears to be shocked pure and simple, Orihime has an unreadable expression, and Uryuu…

Ichigo nearly jumps back in surprise at the cold expression he's sending her way, his dark blue eyes practically cutting through her they're so steely. _What the hell is wrong with him?_

Unsure what to think of the glare her crush is sending her way, she pushes the matter to the back of her mind to ponder over later when she's not standing in front of her entire class. As it is, she brings her focus back to her teacher just in time to hear the latter half of her statement. "—ake the empty desk next to your brother."

As the orangette slips into her seat, which is next to the window and behind Orihime in addition to being next to Ichirou, a small smile finds its way to her lips. _All things considered, that went pretty well!_

The school day passes by in the typical blur of lectures until the lunch bell rings. Like a pack of wolves that has been waiting for the opportune moment to strike its prey, most of the class immediately begin to descend upon Ichigo's desk. Salvation from the oncoming onslaught arrives in the form of Tatsuki, who is by her side in a flash, asking, "Hey Ichigo, would you like to have lunch with Orihime and me?"

"Oh," the teen replies, pleased that her old friend is already reaching out to her new identity. "I would love to!" In the corner of her eyes, she notices Rukia stand and start to walk towards the door, so she adds in a voice loud enough for the shinigami to hear, "I don't think Rukia has anyone to eat with either. Do you two mind if she joins us?"

The shinigami stops and turns around, surprise in her eyes, and Tatsuki asks in confusion, "Wait, you know Rukia?"

 _Shit. Right, I'm supposed to be new here…_ "Ah, y-yeah… I got into town on Saturday, and Rukia hung out with Ichirou at our house yesterday, so I got to know her a little bit then." _Saved!_

"Oh," the martial artist replies. "That makes sense. Well, I don't have a problem with it." She turns to face the desk in front of the orangette. "What about you, Orihime?"

"That sounds great!" the dark orange haired girl cheerfully responds, the earlier unreadable expression she had while Ichigo introduced herself now gone.

"Great," Ichigo says with a smile before pushing her chair back so she can see past Tatsuki to Ichirou. "Big brother, you still have the bento I asked you to hold onto, right?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Soon enough, the makeshift lunch group is sitting down to eat, even more people joining them than originally planned. The original four, Chizuru, Michiru, Ryou, and Mahana all end up sitting underneath the tree in the school yard, chatting idly while eating. Ichigo, to her own surprise, has a small smile upon her lips the whole time, the amiable atmosphere among the girls leaving her wondering why she waited as long as she did to admit to herself that she's a girl. _I know I was scared about how my family would react_ , the teen thinks, _but that can't have been the only reason because once Rukia questioned me about whether I'd risk losing my old life, I told her that everyone would understand if I risked losing them to do what would make me happy… So what was it? Could it really be that I just couldn't admit the truth until it was thrust upon me then night I became a shinigami_ _— the night I felt what it was like to be a girl?_

"What are you thinking about, Ichigo?" Orihime asks, drawing her out of her thoughts.

"Oh, nothing that important. Just, ah, thinking about how good my little sister's cooking is," the orangette replies, trying to downplay the matter.

The dark orange haired girl looks thoughtful at that. "Oh, okay." _She was frowning just now, even though she was smiling the whole time before that… And for some reason, every time I look at her I can't help but think about what Rukia and Ichirou said on Saturday…_ Her resolve to learn more about her new classmate, Orihime asks the first question that pops into her mind, "Ichigo, you said you and Ichirou are twins, but you called him 'big brother' earlier. Why did you do that?"

The small smile from before finds its way to Ichigo's lips again as she replies, "Well, we _are_ twins, but he was born first." _Technically not a lie._ Her smile grows into a full blown grin as she adds, "If you were to ask him about it, I'm sure he'd say it's 'such a pain' to have three little sisters."

"Yeah, that sounds like Ichirou all right," Tatsuki quips with a grin of her own before her eyes grow thoughtful. "Still, I've been wracking my brain since this morning, and I can't recall Ichirou ever mentioning you."

"H-he didn't?" Ichigo responds, trying to contain her nervousness and remember the lie she had planned ahead of time with her family and Rukia.

Luckily, the shinigami comes to her rescue, commenting, "That's just like Ichirou, never talking about what's bothering him. I wouldn't be surprised if he had convinced himself Ichigo didn't exist until he heard she'd be coming back in mid-May." The other girls all laugh at that, spare Ichigo and Orihime.

 _So Rukia thinks that must be it too?_ the orangette thinks, reviewing her earlier thoughts. _It fits… After I gained shinigami powers, I was able to look back and realize that I'd known all along, yet I never really admitted it to myself until that day._

At the same time, Orihime looks thoughtful again. _Ichirou_ did _seem really depressed since mid-May. That's why I wanted to talk with him on Saturday…_

Unbidden, her memories of that day come rushing back.

* * *

" _Mhm… Is that why you want to be a girl so bad? Because he only likes girls?"_

"Rukia _! That's_ not _it. How many times do I have to tell you? I've wanted to be a girl for as long as I can remember."_

* * *

 _And now, Ichirou doesn't seem depressed anymore. The very same day his twin sister, who he's never mentioned before, joins our school._ Contrary to what many people in Karakura High think of her, Orihime is not a stupid girl. _The only question is… Should I ask hi_ — her _about it? If she's happy again, then does it really matter how it happened?_

"Hey, Rukia!" Mahana suddenly asks. "Do you… like Ichirou?"

Rukia spits out the juice she's drinking in surprise, and Ichigo nearly chokes on a piece of fish she's chewing on. " _What_?" they both ask in unison.

"Well," the dark brown haired girl says with unabashed curiosity, "we were just wondering what exactly your relationship with Ichigo is?"

"Relationship…? He's a friend…" Rukia replies as she wipes the juice off of her face.

"Mahana! How can you ask her so bluntly like that?" Michiru cries in mortification.

"What are you talking about? You guys were curious about it, so I asked!"

"I… I'm not curious at all!"

As the other girls continue to talk — except for Ryou, who's caught up in a book as usual — Ichigo and Rukia share a look of bewilderment, neither having expected the topic of whether the shinigami likes Ichirou to comic up.

"Well?!" Mahana eventually says, turning the focus back to Rukia and leaning forward expectantly. "So what is your relationship with him? Ever since you came, you've always been around Ichirou! What exactly are you two to each other?"

Suddenly feeling mischievous, Ichigo leans forward as well with a sly smirk. "Oh? I didn't realize you'd been _that_ close with my brother, Rukia! I want to hear the answer to Mahana's question too!"

 _Traitor!_ Rukia thinks to herself though there's no heat in it. "Ichirou is… just a friend," she finally answers, plastering a false smile on her face.

As the other girls go on talking around them, Ichigo silently watches as Rukia's expression slowly slips into one of sorrow. _Why does she look so sad? She doesn't…_ actually _like me_ _— err, old me —_ _does she?_ By the time she returns to class along with everyone else, she still hasn't come to an answer.

* * *

"Rukia won't be walking home with us," Ichigo tells Ichirou as she pauses by him at the lockers.

"Wait, why?" the mod-soul asks as he slips on his shoes and slams his locker shut loudly enough to make her cringe. "Is this because of whatever you said during lunch that made her sad?"

She frowns. "No, I… I mean, I'm not sure, but I think that maybe she likes…" The orangette glances around to check for eavesdroppers then leans in and whispers. "…likes _old_ me."

"And what's wrong with me?" Ichirou declares slapping his hand against his chest as he starts towards the front grate, a groaning Ichigo following him. "After all, I'm the new and improved Ichirou!"

"Would you be quiet?!" Ichigo hisses at him through clenched teeth when a couple of confused students turn to look at the passing pair. "Somebody might hear!"

"Yeah, yeah," he says, waving off her concern. "Let's just get home, so I can get some more of Yuzu's delicious cooking!"

The shorter teen sweatdrops. "Really? You're already hungry? You're gonna get fat if you eat at that rate."

"Eh, if I do, then I'll just join a sports club like soccer. I _do_ have the proper equipment," he comments without a care as they turn down a side street a ways from the school.

"The proper equipment for _cheating_ , sure," she replies, remembering how high and how hard the mod-soul can kick and jump while in a body.

"That's quite the serious accusation, Kurosaki."

The siblings whirl around to face the voice and find Uryuu there, leveling a cold look at the pair.

"U-Uryuu," Ichigo replies without thinking. "I didn't mean anything serious by it."

"Oh? You know my name do you?"

 _Shit! I screwed up again!_ "Ah, one of the girls must've mentioned it at lunch," she weakly explains, barely resisting the urge to wince at how obvious her lie is.

"Even if that _were_ true," the dark haired boy counters as he starts to slowly walk towards them, "the real reason you know my name is obvious, _Ichirou_."

"I think you've got us mixed up, Ishida," Ichirou says with a scowl, unconsciously stepping forward and putting himself between Ichigo and Uryuu.

"No," the advancing teen replies without hesitation. "I knew who you were the moment you entered the classroom and introduced yourself, Kurosaki. You're the _real_ Ichirou. Now tell me what you're playing at! How did you get a new body, and why are you pretending to be a girl?!"

Ichigo takes a step back, visibly shaken by his words. _I don't understand… Only my family and Rukia were supposed to know!_ "N-no!" she replies, her pitch high and wobbly. "I'm not… I was never… never Ichirou. It's a _lie_! It's always been a lie…"

"You think I'm bluffing, do you?" the pale, raven-haired boy says as he stops just out of reach of the tense Ichirou. "You seem to lack the ability to sense people with high spiritual strength, but I noticed _you_ , Ichirou Kurosaki. I noticed from the day I entered Karakura High that your spiritual pressure is unusually high, I noticed when you gained shinigami powers in mid-May, and I noticed the moment I saw her that Rukia Kuchiki is really a shinigami." A stunned Ichigo and Ichirou watch as the air suddenly fills with long, white papers that all run off in different directions. Uryuu's hand snaps out, grabbing the one attached to Ichirou's chest. "As you can see, _this_ Ichirou's reiraku is white. But did you know? The color of a shinigami's reiraku is different." He steps past Ichirou and snags the red paper dancing out of Ichigo's chest into the air. "It's _red_. So stop _lying_ to me, _Ichirou_ Kurosaki!"

Tears that she can't hold back stream down Ichigo's face she stares up into taller boy's dark blue eyes, their vehement, ferocious glare cutting into her. "I… I've…" She starts to tremble and can't get the words to come out but still keeps trying, unable to stay silent while pinned down by his gaze. "I've always…"

 _What is this?_ Uryuu thinks to himself as he watches her struggle to speak. _The Kurosaki I know is a brash delinquent, someone who would lash out at having been outed like this. So why then is he acting like this? Isn't this all just a joke, some plot or plan? Why does he seem to be honestly scared?_

The sound of a tremendous weight crashing into the ground further down the street interrupts the moment, and a horrendous, unmistakable scream tears through the air and into the trio's ears. Ichigo starts violently because of her already fragile emotional state, and when she spins around to face what she knows is a hollow, she inadvertently trips and falls backwards into Uryuu, sending them both toppling to the ground.

"Dammit, Ichirou!" Uryuu cries as she lands on him, preventing him from easily summoning his kojaku bow.

"Two tasty looking humans, heeee!" the dinosaur-like hollow says to itself as it begins to swiftly dash towards them on four legs, the large spines running along its back and down its tail whipping back and forth and the claws on its feet tearing apart the ground with each step.

"I'm _not Ichirou_!" Ichigo cries despite the severity of the situation as she rolls off of the boy and towards her brother before scrambling up to her feet while crying out, "Ichirou, the gokkon tekkou!"

"I know!" the mod-soul shouts back, having already pulled on the soul-ejecting glove.

"Toooooo laaaate!" the hollow cries with glee as it takes the last steps towards Ichigo with its mouth open and ready to bite her with sharp, gleaming fangs.

"For you," Uryuu declares in a harsh voice as a bow made of reishi bursts into life in his right hand from the cross adorning his wrist. In one swift movement, he slips his finger left pointer finger into the circle attached to the cross, creates a reishi arrow by drawing back the circle like one would draw back the string of a bow, and releases the circle, sending the arrow rocketing straight through the one eye socket on the mask and out the other. The arrow kills the hollow, and force of Uryu's attack combined with the forward momentum of the hollow knocks the corpse off course, sending it hurtling through the space in between Ichigo and Uryuu and crashing to a halt some distance further down the road.

Ichigo and Ichirou are frozen in shock, the latter a mere step away from striking her with the gokkon tekkou. Uryuu lets his right arm hang loosely at his side but doesn't dissipate his bow as he turns to face the orange-haired duo.

"That… that was…" Ichigo mutters, as she stares at her classmate.

"Me who killed that hollow yesterday?" Uryuu finishes for her, thinking he knows what she's about to say.

"So _cool_!" she cries in awe, her chocolate brown eyes suddenly alight. Uryuu and Ichirou are both entirely thrown by her outburst, but she continues to talk, either undeterred by their shock or otherwise so completely lost in her fantasies that she doesn't notice. "You've always been so awesome with your quiet loner nature, but now on top of that, you're like some hero straight out of a shoujo, saving the girl who has a secret crush on you just before she's attacked by a monster with an awesome hidden ability! You even dropped a badass one-liner at the last second! How _cool_ is that?!"

The two boys share a look of confusion over Ichigo's head (Which isn't hard, since both boys are over 170 centimeters tall, and she's just 158 centimeters.) about her sudden fangirl rant, but they both quickly recover.

"A 'hero straight out of a shoujo?'" Uryuu asks, sounding simultaneously repulsed by and attracted to the idea.

"You have a crush on Ishida?!" Ichirou shouts in astonishment before he realizes what he's saying.

The orangette promptly whirls towards Ichirou in order to put her back to Uryuu and hide the very prominent blush now covering her cheeks, thus (mercifully) missing the look of horror on Uryuu's face, as she yells back, "N-no I don't! Stupid Ichirou, making false claims like that!"

"Enough of this!" Uryuu shouts, his brain now too over-loaded from trying to grasp why 'Ichirou' is acting like such a girl. "I don't know what you're up to Ichirou, but it just makes me hate you even more!"

Ichigo pales at his words and slowly turns her head to look over her shoulder. "Hate me… 'even more?'" she whispers, unable to hide the distress in her voice.

Ichirou has always been a shameless pervert with no qualms about looking up girls' skirts or any other equally terrible acts, but there are lines that even _he_ won't cross. Uryuu Ishida had just crossed one of those lines. Enraged, Ichirou storms past his sister and grabs Uryuu's shirt with a snarl. "You jerk! How dare you talk to _any_ girl like that, much less _my sister_?!"

" _Ichirou_!" she cries out in dismay, whirling around and trying to pull him away. "Stop it!"

"But he sai—," Ichirou starts to say, glancing over his shoulder, but he's cut off when Uryuu swings his bow up and into Ichirou's side. The orange-haired boy grunts in pain and releases Uryuu, who quickly hops away, putting distance between himself and the Kurosaki siblings.

"You want to know why I hate her?" Uryuu says, his voice and expression dark. "It's because I hate shinigami. I am a quincy, one who holds the power to kill hollows. Shinigami like you… are _unnecessary_ , and I intend to prove that here and now. Fight me, Ichirou Kurosaki. Fight me, and I will show you you're unnecessary."

"No," Ichigo replies without hesitation, her soft voice contrasting with the hard look in her eyes.

"Heh. Are you just going to run away from my challenge then? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. You're a shinigami whose power was granted to you by Rukia Kuchiki… In other words, you are a 'temporary shinigami.' Without her permission, you can't even move a finger."

" _Wrong_ and _wrong_." She takes a calm step forward, placing herself at her brother's side. "Whatever else you might have thought about the _old me_ , know this: I only ever fought to protect people. Everyone always called me a delinquent, a hoodlum who picks fights for fun, but I was always fighting to help someone who'd been wronged, to protect people who couldn't defend themselves. Back in May, a hollow my family's clinic. Rukia came to help us and got herself hurt because I was an idiot and tried to convince it to eat me instead of my family. I saw her that night, Uryuu, but where were _you_?"

"Excuse me?" Uryuu replies, caught off guard.

"You heard me," she hotly responds, her eyes blazing with righteous fury. "You said that shinigami are unnecessary, didn't you? If that's true, then where were you that night? Where were _you_ when that monster slashed open my dad's back, leaving him unconscious and bleeding out? Where were _you_ when it then attacked Karin, giving her a head wound so bad she barely managed to get away? Where were _you_ when it would have _eaten_ Yuzu if Rukia hadn't cut off the arm holding her?!"

Uryuu can only stare in shocked silence, his bow dispersing into scattered reishi particles once more. Her heated words were piercing through him, and his blood feels like ice. What could he say to that? Why _hadn't_ he been there? Ichirou too is watching in surprise as his sister verbally tears into Uryuu.

"I became a shinigami that night because Rukia couldn't fight anymore after she saved me. I did it to protect my family, and when she told me that she hadn't recovered her powers yet, I chose to use my power be her replacement and protect the people in this town while she recuperates. I _refuse_ to use that power to hurt someone, even if he's an _idiot_ spouting nonsense about how shinigami are 'unnecessary' while people still need shinigami help. If you want to prove that quincies, or whatever the hell you said you are, are better than shinigami, then prove it through your actions! Until then, you're just a shoujo hero — not a _real_ one."

"Goddammit, this is taking too long! If you're not going to get out of that gigai, then I'll make you!"

The eyes of all three teens snap up to the rooftop, the direction the new voice came from, but the black clothed figure vanishes in a burst of speed. The newcomer appears in the trio's midst, and before any of them can react, he grabs the hand Ichirou has the gokkon tekkou on and shoves it into Ichigo. Uryuu instinctively forms his bow to try and defend against the attacker, but before he can do anything further, the newcomer grabs Ichigo's ejected soul and stabs through her sternum with a katana, causing the orange-haired shinigami to cough blood and drop her zanpakutou in pain. The katana — _No, it's a zanpakutou_ , Uryuu corrects himself — slips back out causing blood to spurt freer from the now unimpeded wound in her chest, and Uryuu starts to form the arrow.

 _I'm not going to make it!_ Uryuu thinks as the blade is thrusted towards Ichigo's stomach, not questioning in the heat of the moment precisely why he's defending someone he wanted to fight a few minutes earlier.

A split second before the blade cuts into her a second time, Ichirou's foot slams into the figure's chest, sending the attacker flying backwards from the sheer force and skidding to a halt a handful of meters away. "Who the hell are you?!" the teen demands in a rage as Uryuu trains his now drawn bow on the attacker.

"Heh," the man says as he rises to his feet and slides the goggles he's wearing up onto his forehead. He has no eyebrows, and in their place he has tribal style tattoos that rise high up across his forehead and into the deep ridges on either side of his widow's peak. His bright red hair is pulled back into a ponytail that flares out into a voluminous ponytail. "Well, since you asked _so_ nicely, I'll tell you. The name's Renji Abarai."


	3. Shining Moon

" _Goddammit, this is taking too long! If you're not going to get out of that gigai, then I'll make you!"_

 _The eyes of all three teens snap up to the rooftop, the direction the new voice came from, but the black clothed figure vanishes in a burst of speed. The newcomer appears in the trio's midst, and before any of them can react, he grabs the hand Ichirou has the gokkon tekkou on and shoves it into Ichigo. Uryuu instinctively forms his bow to try and defend against the attacker, but before he can do anything further, the newcomer grabs Ichigo's ejected soul and stabs through her sternum with a katana, causing the orange-haired shinigami to cough blood and drop her zanpakutou in pain. The katana_ _—_ No, it's a zanpakutou _, Uryuu corrects himself — slips back out causing blood to spurt freer from the now unimpeded wound in her chest, and Uryuu starts to form_ the arrow.

I'm not going to make it! _Uryuu thinks as the blade is thrusted towards Ichigo's stomach, not questioning in the heat of the moment precisely why he's defending someone he wanted to fight a few minutes earlier._

 _A split second before the blade cuts into her a second time, Ichirou's foot slams into the figure's chest, sending the attacker flying backwards from the sheer force and skidding to a halt a handful of meters away. "Who the hell are you?!" the teen demands in a rage as Uryuu trains his now drawn bow on the attacker._

" _Heh," the man says as he rises to his feet and slides the goggles he's wearing up onto his forehead. He has no eyebrows, and in their place he has tribal style tattoos that rise high up across his forehead and into the deep ridges on either side of his widow's peak. His bright red hair is pulled back into a ponytail that flares out into a voluminous ponytail. "Well, since you asked_ so _nicely, I'll tell you. The name's Renji Abarai."_

* * *

 **Bright Queen  
** By: Eva Grimm  
 _Chapter Three: Shining Moon_

"Born and then fall  
Is the same as death."

Tite Kubo, _Bleach vol. 35_

* * *

Chapter Summary: Ichigo, Uryuu, and Ichirou experience the strength of a vice-captain. Well, one fifth of it, anyway.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Bleach. _Bright Queen_ is a fan-based work and not sold for profit.

***SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers for any Bleach book — they're going to happen. You've been warned.

* * *

"Renji Abarai," Uryuu mutters darkly, eyeing the man's shihakushou. "You're a shinigami, so why are you attacking one of your comrades?"

"Comrade?" the man says with a laugh. "Is that what you've been told? Listen, kid, that _human_ you're protecting is no comrade of mine. In fact, she _stole_ her powers from one of my comrades: Rukia Kuchiki."

"I've heard the story," the quincy says in a clipped tone. "As I understand it, the theft was quite unintentional, so why are you trying to kill her?"

"Idiot, I'm not trying to _kill_ her." The shinigami lefts his zanpakutou and points it at Ichigo, who is kneeling on the ground and trying to put pressure on the painful wound in her chest while keeping her eyes on her attacker. "A shinigami has two points on their body called the saketsu and hakusui, the shinigami equivalent of the chain of fate and the source of a shinigami's reiatsu respectively. If you pierce them both, then that shinigami will lose their powers and never be able to get them back."

Ichigo gasps, her eyes widening. "And you just pierced my…"

"Your saketsu," Renji finishes, his lips twisting into a dark grin as he slides his feet and blade into a battle ready stance. "All I need to do now is get your hakusui, and you'll be a regular human again. Captain Kuchiki said that whether you die in the process is inconsequential."

"Liar!" Ichirou snarls, slashing his hand through the air as if he's dispelling the lie hanging before him. "Rukia would never order an attack on Ichigo, much less a fatal one!"

"You really don't know anything, do you?" the red-haired shinigami remarks. "I'm talking about Rukia's older brother, captain of the sixth division of the Gotei 13 and head of the Kuchiki clan, one of the four noble clans of Soul Society. He's already retrieved Rukia and taken her back to Soul Society to face execution."

"What?!" all three of them cry at once, and Ichigo adds after, "Execution for what?!"

The shinigami darts forward in a black and red blur of motion, hoping to take advantage of the trio's shock, but the Uryuu recovers near instantaneously and fires off multiple arrows in rapid succession, forcing the redhead to abandon his assault.

"You really don't get it?" Renji says as he tries a different tactic, dashing around the trio in a circle to hunt for openings in the quincy's guard. "Two shinigami are dispatched to the human world on a joint mission, one to destroy the stolen shinigami powers in a human, even if that human must die, and the other to retrieve the shinigami from whom those powers were stolen… You really don't think those two aren't related?"

"She's going to be executed because of me?" Ichigo hoarsely asks, the pain in her chest flaring at the thought.

"Bingo!" The shinigami bursts inward once more, but Uryuu sends a flurry of arrows to meet him, unyielding in his assault until the redhead once again backs off. "Giving a human shinigami powers is one of the worst crimes a shinigami can commit. Once we found out what she did, Captain Kuchiki and I were immediately sent out here." Renji abruptly stops running and casually lays the back of his zanpakutou on his shoulder. "Obviously, this kind of thing is extremely rare, so imagine my surprise when I find that in addition to that, Rukia had given her powers to a one of those rare humans who has a soul different from her original body. What are the chances of that, right?"

 _Now that this guy mentions it… I've seen Kurosaki as a shinigami a couple of times now, and he_ has _looked different… Almost like…_ Uryuu's eyes widen at his belated realization, but he resists the urge to look away from Renji and examine the hunched over shinigami behind him, knowing that even a momentary distraction is all the redhead needs to fulfill his mission. Still, he can't help but remember her words from earlier that day: _"N-no! I'm not… I was never… never Ichirou. It's a_ lie _! It's always been a lie…"_

"But anyway," Renji says, placing his palm against the flat side of his zanpakutou, just above the tsuba. "I'm done playing games with you, human. I've got a mission to complete, so I'm done with this idle chatter. _Howl, Zabimaru_!" His zanpakutou glows with red light, and as he swipes his palm along the side of the blade down to the tip, the katana morphs into an entirely different sword. The blade becomes thicker and divided into seven segments, and on the sharpened edge of the blade at the point on each segment closest to the tip of the zanpakutou, a tooth like blade juts out, the final tooth at the tip extending out nearly three times as far as the rest.

Still standing at a distance, the shinigami swings his blade, and the steel extends in towards the trio, the segments separating from each other while remaining connected by metal bands running through the length of the blade with what appears to be a spine in the center of them. _Shit!_ Uryuu internally cries as he sends an arrow flying out to intercept the transformed zanpakutou, and though his attack strikes one of the middle segments, the segments closest to the quincy still lash out, slashing open his chest and sending him sprawling to the ground in pain as blood gushes out of the gash and his bow dissipates.

"Uryuu!" Ichigo cries in dismay at the same time Ichirou shouts, "Ishida!"

"Woohoo, that looks like it hurts!" Renji comments with a grin. "You know, I didn't really want to hurt you, but that's what happens when you stand between a shinigami and his mission!"

The fallen quincy's instinct is to give up, to just put pressure on his wound and let the redhead get on with his mission, but in spite of all that, he summons his bow once again and awkwardly aims an arrow at the shinigami. Both the bow and arrow are flickering, his control over the ambient reishi faltering from the severity of his wound. "I hate shinigami," he mutters, trying to still his shaking arms, "but a shinigami who speaks so casually about his self-proclaimed 'comrade' being sentenced to death, who speaks so casually about killing a gu— _girl_ for doing what she had to do to protect her family… I hate you more."

Ichigo's free hand clenches around her zanpakutou, forcing herself to stand and fight even as she feels her body grow sluggish from blood loss. "It figures you'd finally stop being such a jerk now of all times…" She weakly jokes as she takes a shaky step towards the fallen quincy. "Stupid Uryuu…"

"Stop this, Ichigo!" Ichirou cries, grabbing her arm. "This guy's going to kill you! We have to get you out of here!"

"Let me go, Ichirou!" she responds, her voice hard. Despite being weak from her injury, her brother's strength is all in his legs, so she manages to pull her arm out of his grasp and continue slowly making her way over to Uryuu while Renji watches with grim anticipation. "Didn't you hear me earlier? I promised to use my power to protect the people in this town. I'm not about to let a shinigami kill someone on my watch!"

"Kurosaki, listen to him!" Uryuu shouts. "I might hate you, but I'm still not going to let you die! So go, get out of here while you can!"

"You idiot!" she growls as she finally reaches him. "Still going on about hating me at a time like this! Ugh! And didn't I just say I'm not going to let you die? I'm not going _anywhere_ ,so crawl out of here while I hold him off!"

"What?! Who do you think you are?! Now I'm going to stay here just because you told me not too!"

"Ugh! You're ridiculous! Fine, since it's obvious neither of us is going to back down, I guess we'll just have to fight together and beat this guy!"

"Work with _you_?! Dream on! You'll just get drag me down, weakling!"

"What'd you say?! You take that back, blockhead!"

"No way, you pain in the ass!"

"Don't talk to girls that way, you jerk!"

"If you two lovebirds are quite finished…" Renji interjects, sweatdropping at their very poorly timed argument.

" _We're not lovebirds_!" they both shout out at the redhead before abruptly remembering exactly where they are and readying themselves for the shinigami's attack.

"You know what? You're right. I know what you are…" he darkly replies as he slashes with his zanpakutou once more, the whip-like blade cutting through the air towards the wounded substitute shinigami and quincy. "You're _done for_!"

Uryuu sends his arrow soaring through the air, and despite aiming for the tip of the extending blade, his attack misses its mark because of his shaky arms and position lying on the ground. The arrow ends up striking the middle segment again, and when the last three segments continue to slice through the air towards Ichigo, she manages to deflect the blow by slashing at the last segment. To both the teens surprise though, the deflected blade abruptly changes course in mid-air and lashes out at Ichigo once more. The orangette just barely manages to position her zanpakutou between her and the unexpected attack, and steel clashes against steel. The force of Renji's attack is too much however, and Zabimaru cuts straight through Ichigo's zanpakutou just below the tsuba, cutting open part of Ichigo's right hand and severing the red and gold hilt from the tsuba and blade. Ichigo falls forward onto her right knee and cries out in pain as the detached blade and tsuba clatter to the ground, but she continues to clench the hilt of her zanpakutou in her right hand, some part of her refusing to release it.

Renji begins to laugh at the sight as Ichigo struggles back to her feet. "Oh wow, that's pitiful. You know, I thought you might actually be a worthwhile fight, since you had that huge ass zanpakutou, but I should have known better than to think a human like you could be a real challenge. I bet you don't even know your zanpakutou's name, do ya?"

 _My zanpakutou's name…?_ the struggling substitute shinigami wonders. _What he said earlier, 'Howl, Zabimaru…' Was he calling out his zanpakutou's name?_

 _You should give up._

Ichigo's eyes widen as a tall man dressed in nearly all black appears just behind and to the side of Renji with his tattered black trench coat, long black hair, and upturned, tattered collar waving gently in the wind.

 _Who are you?_ she asks.

"Tch, figures," Renji comments when she says nothing in reply. "Like I said earlier: I should have known better than to think a human would reach out to her zanpakutou."

 _I've tried to tell you since that first day, but you have never heard me,_ the man says his eyes piercing through her from behind brown tinted, transparent sunglasses made of nothing but glass. His stubble covered face is set in a frown. _Now that you can, listen well: You should give up and let your foe seal away your shinigami powers. If you do that, you might live. You can't stop his attack in your condition, much less with just a hilt._

"This fight's over. Now just stay still while I pierce your hakusui."

 _No,_ Ichigo replies within her mind. _I swore I would protect everyone in this town, and that includes Stupid Uryuu. Even if I let Renji seal my powers, would he really let Uryuu live after all of this? No, I_ need _my powers… Without them, I can't protect anyone._

The red haired shinigami extends his right arm behind him, preparing to strike once more and deal the final blow. "Any last words?"

The tall, darkly dressed man's frown deepens. _I figured that would be your answer. You're so troublesome, fixated on protecting everyone but yourself. I guess I have no choice but to help you out then._

"Yeah, I do," Ichigo says as she lifts her zanpakutou's hilt and holds it against her waist on her left side.

 _Call me out!_

" _Rise up and illuminate my kingdom, Tougetsu_ ("Shining Moon"; 燾月)!" she proclaims, her voice unyielding as she says the words and tears the hilt through the air in front of her.

The red and gold hilt explodes in a tremendous burst of reishi that causes the dust on the ground around Ichigo to kick up into a cloud, forcing everyone else to shield their eyes.

"What the hell?" Renji mutters, his zanpakutou no longer held at the ready and his eyes widening as the dust begins to settle. "No, that's not possible…"

Ichigo stands before him, still weak from her wounds but nevertheless holding herself with poise. The long scabbard and buckle harness she previously had is gone, and in their place is a short, white scabbard that hangs from her shihakushou's hakama-himo by two silver ashi on her left side at her waist. In her right hand and held down and to her right is a reformed zanpakutou different than the one she wielded before. The weapon is a kodachi, which is not only smaller in size than its previous form but also smaller than a katana. The blade is silver and emits a silver light; the tsuba is a white, metal cross that connects at its tips with a white, metal circle; and the hilt's red and gold pattern is now silver and white.

 _I'll help you for now, but so you know…_

"Ichirou, Uryuu," she whispers while keeping her mouth still so Renji cannot tell she's speaking. "Please keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them. When I do, I need Ichirou to kick Renji over here, and Uryuu to aim an arrow at his hakusui without firing it." _I have no idea where the hakusui is, so I'll just have to hope_ he _does._

 _I'll be mad with you if you get yourself killed._

Ichirou closes his eyes without question, and Uryuu follows suit, the substitute shinigami's tone clearly conveying to him that she has a plan.

 _And I won't care if it happens because you're protecting someone._

The red haired shinigami snarls and is so focused on Ichigo's zanpakutou that he doesn't notice her companions' closed eyes. "You think you change anything just because you finally got a clue?! You're finished, Kurosaki!" he screams as he moves his zanpakutou into position once more.

 _So what is your wish, little 'bright queen?'_

Adrenaline courses through Ichigo, temporarily renewing her strength. She knows that she only has one chance — one hope to save her brother and Uryuu. _Lend me your power, Tougetsu!_ She whips her kodachi up into the air so the tip is pointing straight above her and proclaims, her reiatsu swirling within her, "Mikotonori: Mouko ("Edict: Blind country"; 詔: 盲国)!"

The blade of her kodachi immediately flares with brilliant silver light, saturating the street that blinds everyone but Ichigo. Renji howls with pain as he flings his left arm up to block the light, but the damage is already done.

Dispelling her blade's light, Ichigo fiercely whispers, " _Now_!"

Both of the boys open their eyes, and Ichirou immediately sprints forward, the powerful legs his mod-soul nature grants him allowing him to move at speed comparable to a shinigami. Renji, a seasoned warrior, hears the teen's approach, but even the most seasoned of warriors cannot fight at full strength when they've lost one of their senses. The shinigami swipes at Ichirou as he approaches, keeping his zanpakutou in its condensed form, but the attack is altogether too easy for the fleet-footed Ichirou, who deftly ducks under the blade as it slices through the air the teen had been a moment prior. In a flash, the orange haired boy dashes past the blinded shinigami, sweeps his feet out from under him, and delivers a devastating kick that sends him flying over towards Ichigo and Uryuu, where he painfully lands on his back with a grunt.

With the last of her adrenaline, Ichigo falls to her knees besides Renji and drives her kodachi into the middle of his sternum — straight into his saketsu. Uryuu, like Ichigo, is so badly damaged that ordinarily he could only barely move, but also like her, he can sense that everything is riding on the last ditch attempt. Adrenaline fills his veins, pushing him to pass his bodily limitations, and so the quincy violently yanks himself up onto his knees, summons his bow, and takes aim at Renji's stomach, directly above his hakama-himo.

"Move and I'll… shoot your… hakusui," Uryuu manages to say between gasps for air.

"It's… over… Renji," Ichigo finishes, only barely managing to hold herself upright now as her adrenaline fades away, leaving redoubled pain in her sternum and an utter lack of energy in its wake.

"Hainawa," a voice from somewhere nearby clearly calls out.

A yellow rope made of reishi slams into Uryuu, knocking the quincy back to the ground as it swiftly encircles his body, tightly restraining his arms against his sides.

The weary Ichigo can only manage to turn to face the speaker as another word is chanted, "Rikujoukourou," and six beams of light rocket out of the rope wrapped around Uryuu and pierce through Renji's fallen form, forming a six-pointed star parallel to the ground.

Standing on a nearby rooftop is Kisuke Urahara, his left hand clutched around his cane, and his right hand clenched around his closed fan while he points his index finger pointed at Renji. "Well done! You all did sooooo well!"

"Mister… Ura…hara?" Ichigo murmurs faintly as she feels her consciousness start to fade, the severity of her wound finally catching up with her. The silver light emanating from the kodachi in Renji's chest dims slowly until it fades into nothing, leaving just a silver blade rising out of the shinigami's black kosode.

"Right you are, Miss Kurosaki!" the man replies as he jumps into the air and smoothly lands next to the group, idly opening his fan and holding up to obscure his face as he does so. "Don't you worry about a thing. I'll take over from here. Right now, all of you should just _sleep_."

 _Goddammit_ , Ichigo thinks just before succumbing to the kidou spell. _Of_ course _he can do it too._

* * *

Ichigo's chocolate brown eyes snap open as she abruptly awakes from a nightmare she can't quite remember. She panics at the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling instead of her room's familiar view and quickly pushes herself up into a seated position and hisses in pain as the nerves in her chest scream in protest.

"Uh-oh, you shouldn't move around, Miss Kurosaki," a familiar voice says from nearby. "Your injury hasn't fully healed."

The teen turns her head to find the source of the voice and is unsurprised to find Urahara nearby, though she _is_ surprised to find him kneeling down beside a sleeping Uryuu while checking bandages. "What happened?"

"I should think it obvious," the blonde haired proprietor replies as he stands up from his position and turns to face her. "You and your companions managed to subdue Mr. Abarai, and I brought you back here to take care of your wounds because I'm such a nice guy." He flips open his fan as he finishes, an utter lack of seriousness in his eyes as the fan and his brimmed hat obscure his face.

Ichigo moves her eyes to the two nearby boys and finds them just starting to wake up. "What were those kidou spells you used at the end of our fight? I mean, the chain of light thing was pretty obvious, I guess, but that other one was…"

"Bakudou #61, Rikujoukourou, is a binding kidou," Urahara explains. "And it can be activated using the light from bakudou #4, Hainawa. Mr. Abarai losing his powers would have been unfortunate, but at the same time, the kikanshinki I won't work on shinigami, so I had to take Mr. Abarai prisoner to prevent his reporting to the Gotei 13."

"Kikanshinki?" Ichigo and Uryuu ask simultaneously. The pair's eyes meet one another for a moment before returning their gaze to Urahara.

"It's my memory substitution device," the shopkeeper remarks as casually as he would talking about the weather. All three of the teens stare at him in horrified fascination. "Surely you had to suspect such a thing existed? How do you think Rukia Kuchiki was able to enroll herself at Karakura High with no formal records of any kind? Or for that matter, how _you_ , Miss Kurosaki, were able to do so as well?"

Realization dawns upon the orangette, and in that moment of silence, Uryuu turns his eyes to face her once more and examines her. The teen has no shirt on, but her breasts are bound up by tape, no doubt because of the severe wound to her sternum from Renji's first attack. He can just barely see the top of her school uniform's skirt poking out from under the sheet covering her bottom half, and though her blouse, bow ribbon, and hair ornaments are lying on the ground next to her, her shihakushou and the kodachi she acquired mid-fight are nowhere to be seen. _So this 'Urahara' can clearly see souls well enough to have put Kurosaki back in hi… her body, can cast shinigami spells, and is the one who gave Rukia the equipment she needed to masquerade as a normal human… Then he must also be:_ "I take it that you are the one who gave Kurosaki a new body?" the quincy asks, having never met Urahara before.

"Bingo! My gigai are top notch, mirroring the soul's image perfectly!" the shopkeeper remarks with a pleased tone.

Ichigo abruptly realizes Uryuu is staring at her with an intense look, and she swiftly grabs the sheet and holds it so it covers her front half as she looks away with a light flush on her cheeks. "Stupid Uryuu, didn't your parents ever teach you to not look at girls like that!"

The quincy quickly looks away, a flush of his own rising on his cheeks. "I… I think I…" The normally well-spoken struggles with his words for a moment, not wanting to admit fault but knowing that he really ought to given how badly he treated her earlier. "… owe you an apology. I've seen you in shinigami form a couple of times before today, and I noticed that you looked different. Those moments were always fleeting though, so I never realized just _how_ different you were. I didn't really remember those moments or understand what they meant until after that shinigami mentioned how a soul like yours is rare… I'm sorry for treating you poorly."

Ichigo, slowly turns to face the raven haired boy, and though he's facing away from her, she can see that his expression mirrors the sincerity in his voice. "Apology… accepted, Uryuu. But just so you know… You're still a jerk."

Ichirou, who has remained silent while watching the two interact, rolls his eyes. _Stupid Ichigo… Why are you being so tsundere?_

Uryuu just smirks. "And I still hate you, Miss Shinigami."

"Hey! That's Miss 'I totally saved your ass back there with my shinigami powers' Shinigami to you!"

" _After_ I got cut up. You really need to work on your timing if you're going to keep going on about wanting to protect people."

"Stupid Uryuu!"

"Pain in the ass."

"I already told you you're not supposed to call girls names like that!"

"I'm not calling you names. I'm merely pointing out a fact."

"Um…" Urahara cuts in while sweatdropping. "Returning to the part where I mentioned holding Mr. Abarai prisoner…" The duo abruptly stop their bickering and turn back to Urahara while studiously ignoring one another. The shopkeeper wisely elects to say nothing more about their argument and instead continues. "As I'm sure you know, Miss Kuchiki has been abducted by her older brother and taken back to Soul Society for execution."

"How do _you_ know about that?" Uryuu inquires, suspicion writ upon his face.

"I watched your entire fight, of course!" Urahara replies cheerfully.

"You _what_?!" all three teens shout in bafflement. Ichigo further adds, "Why on earth would you let that shinigami beat us up so badly?!"

"Ah, I see," Uryuu mutters, drawing confused looks from Ichigo and Ichirou and a pleased look from Urahara. "The moment you heard that Rukia had been abducted, you knew that Kurosaki would want to save her, and you wanted her to know what she's up against."

"Right in one. And I should add that Mr. Abarai wasn't even fighting at full strength."

"He… wasn't…?" Ichigo murmurs worriedly.

"The reiatsu of a vice-captain like Mr. Abarai is too powerful to be allowed into the human world without being restrained. Captains and vice-captains use limiters that typically reduce their power to one fifth of its full capacity. If you infiltrate Soul Society, and there is a way, then you will be facing the _full_ might of the Gotei 13. Thirteen vice-captains of a strength approximately five times greater than what you faced earlier today, thirteen captains whose powers can be hundreds of times greater than even that, and countless foot soldiers whose powers range more widely. _That_ is what you face, should you decide to try and save Rukia Kuchiki."

Ichigo and Ichirou both stare at Urahara in abject horror, and the normally more stoic Uryuu tightly clenches his sheet with his hands and his dark blue eyes are wide.

"The Soul Society usually provides a grace period of a month before a convict faces execution, the maximum penalty. If you wish to save Rukia Kuchiki, then I will prepare the way into Soul Society _if_ , and _only_ if, you agree to train under my supervision for _ten days_ , Miss Kurosaki. The preparation will take seven days, so you will have thirteen days upon arrival." He snaps his fan shut, his gray eyes watching her carefully from beneath the brim of his hat. "What will you do, Miss Kurosaki?"

Uryuu abruptly stands, the slightest grimace of pain crossing his face for a second from the effort, and says in a monotone voice, "Thank you for your care of my wounds, Mr. Urahara. I think I'll take my leave now."

"Oh, is that so?" the shopkeeper remarks, while Ichigo stares at the boy, a myriad of emotions crossing her face. "You're quite welcome. Please see my assistant Tessai as you leave, and he will give you a bottle of pills. Starting now, take one every hour, and you'll be fully recovered by tomorrow morning."

"Thank you again," the quincy says before bowing and leaving.

"Uryuu," Ichigo whispers after he's left, her fluctuating expression finally settling into one of disappointment. "So I'm the only one who will go to save her…"

Urahara opens his fan once more, hiding his secretive smile. "So you've decided?"

Ichigo nods, her chocolate brown eyes filled with resolve. "Yes. I'll do your training."

"Then it's settled!" the shopkeeper declares, his voice light as he turns to the still seated Ichirou. "Mr. Kurosaki, you have no wounds, so I'll see you to the door. I trust you'll relay the situation to your family?"

"Yeah," Ichirou answers as he rises to his feet, his tone half pleased from the reminder that he now has a family and half pissed that _he_ is the one saddled with doing the explaining. A minute later, Ichirou exits Urahara Shop and starts walking home down the darkened streets of Karakura Town. _Home… That really does have a nice ring to it._

Behind him, Kisuke Urahara watches silently while standing outside the shut door of his shop. After Ichirou is completely out of sight, he says, "Have something you want to discuss, Isshin?"

"Yeah, I do," Isshin Kurosaki remarks in a casual tone as he steps out of the shadows cloaking the alley between the Urahara Shop and the building next to it. "I sensed two hollows attacking my daughter's friends a few hours ago. Imagine my surprise when I checked the locations of both fights and discovered trace amounts of hollow bait. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"I do, of course," the shopkeeper answers, snapping his fan shut and sliding it into his coat's pocket. "I used the bait to coax out those hollows."

"I see," he replies, his tone growing sharper. "I figured that might be the case. What are you playing at?"

"Surely some hollow attacks aren't the only things you sensed today," Urahara answers, his tone still calm. "Two shinigami arrived. One of them kidnapped Rukia Kuchiki, and the other attacked your eldest daughter."

"I'm aware…" Isshin responds, wondering what the exiled shinigami is driving at. "I could tell you were near her, and I knew you wouldn't let anything bad happen."

"Good to know that your senses haven't dulled in that special gigai. The reason I mention it is this: Miss Kurosaki was _very_ adamant about wanting to protect her friends. When she woke up, I told her about the odds she'd be facing if she wants to rescue Miss Kuchiki. She still wants to do it anyway." Urahara leaves that revelation hanging in the air for a moment, watching as the man's eyes widen for a moment before becoming stoic once more. "She needs allies, and those two friends of hers had latent powers resting within them."

"I still don't like it," Isshin finally says as he turns and starts walking in the direction Ichirou left a few minutes prior. "Good night."

"Good night," Urahara quietly murmurs as he turns around and slips back into his shop. "And sorry."


End file.
